The experience of fighting in preliminary duels could not be compared to what one felt whilst in a squad. The source of this difference did not arise from the nature of group combat - though it was certainly a component. Instead, the sensation thousands of eyes watching his every move made him guess and second guess every decision he made, such as whether or not he was going to dodge or parry the lance being thrust towards his gut.

The preliminary duels featured sparsely populated stands and several simultaneous battles - each duel fighting for the attention of those sparsely populated eyes. The squad battles, in stark contrast, had a packed stadium and a single event. Donovan could clearly see that there was enough space to handle more than one of these battles, he was currently making use of that space to buy himself time, but he imagined that the number of participating teams was drastically smaller than people seeking a duel. If the average noble attending the academy was half as fickle and lazy as some of the people he met here, then it was a miracle that any of the squads participating had enough members willing to attend.

Donovan ducked under a wide swing from lancer #1. Despite his haste in doing so, this blunder presented Donovan with a prime opportunity to catch his breath. He wouldn't be able to approach with lancer #2 keeping an eye on him, but the presence of an additional obstruction in the form of a recovering lance #1 meant that #2's attack angles were extremely limited. Naturally, #2 was casting an annoyed look at his comrade in arms, one that went completely unnoticed by #1.

This, Donovan had surmised, was what Trebar and the others were referring to when they said that organizing and commanding squad combat wasn't a good idea. The style of combat that the use of Split encouraged did not mesh with multiple people.

Combat, as Donovan had seen demonstrated multiple times, revolved around speed. Skill obviously played a part, but that skill was more along the lines of identifying how to strike or defend in the quickest method. In order to do this, they needed to have enough space to move their weapon around as they please.

Donovan juked forward to evoke a defensive response before stepping back, keeping his position in mind. Wall was his anchor, a relatively stable point on the battlefield that his opponents had no intention of attacking. Armor might be frowned upon, but it was still annoying to have to pierce through. If they could devote one (very pissed off) member to handling Wall, they wouldn't worry about him too much. Of course, Wall's axe was still something they needed to keep their eye on, so they weren't likely to get too close to him. 

On his other flank, some twenty feet away, was Titanyana. Titanyana had no intention of meddling in the fight, but the two of them didn't know that. After having watched her sever the jugular of their sergeant and run her blade through the chest of another of their squad-mates mere moments after the battle began, they were doing everything in their power to keep an eye on her. They wouldn't be able to do anything if she attacked, but they would at least see it coming.

"Sanna?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you planning on attacking?"

"I might hit you if I do."

Donovan cursed under his breath. His opponents, as much as they misunderstood Titanyana's role here, were not idiots. They might get in each other's way this close to each other, but their position relative to Donovan and Sanna made it difficult for Sanna to get any attacks off. The vast majority of his spells were linear attacks, meaning they had to travel in a line to hit their target. Currently, Donovan was too close to that line for Sanna to feel it safe. All it took was one unexpected dodge on Donovan's part and he would have a shard of ice in his shoulder.

His opponents were beginning to tire of his extremely defensive style of combat. Not once had Donovan acted offensively, which seemed to make #1 particularly angry. Was it because he frowned upon such a cowardly combat style? Did he think Donovan was mocking them? Was his inability to do anything but graze Donovan eating at his nerves? Donovan had no clue, but an impatient and agitated enemy was likely to make mistakes.

Of course, that meant nothing if he was unable to capitalize on those mistakes, and Donovan simply wasn't fast enough to close the distance before one of them recovered and attacked. 

"Hey, Sanna?"

"Yes sir?"

"How about you tell me to duck?" Donovan made certain his words would be gibberish to his opponents. 

"Duck?"

"Bend down. I won't hold it against you if I still get injured."

"Um, if you say so."

Donovan pulled his left shoulder pack as the tip of #1's lance poked into the leather pad, knocking away the blade in an attempt to knock him off balance. No luck.

"Now!"

Donovan dove forward a little bit, not quite prone but flatter to the ground than if he had crouched. It was a stance he had seen Titanyana take on multiple times, one she often assumed whilst dodging. His left hand was on the ground, just below his sternum, keeping his chest a few inches off the ground. If one were to look at him from above, Donovan's legs would appear similar to a frog's. As both a male and Terran (read: not Nekh), Donovan's anatomy did not allow him to fold his legs under his torso quite as neatly. He could still get quite a bit of power in the forward direction, but he was more concerned with the distance he could travel.

Two lances angled down towards him, #1 pulling his back a bit to ensure Donovan could not get within the radius of the blade. Unfortunately, the two of them were forced to immediately abandon their attempt at countering Donovan's unexpected movement as a flurry of ice shards zipped over Donovan's head. 

As Sanna had said was likely to be the case with this sort of sorcery, most of the projectiles had been dodged, the few impacts that hadn't hit their densely knit shirt causing only marginal levels of damage. In all honesty, Donovan probably would have been fined so long as he didn't get hit in the head or neck given his heavier leather armor, but it probably wasn't a good idea to chance it.

Seizing the instant of surprise, Donovan sprung towards #1. In his desperation to dodge, he had raised his lance much higher than his compatriot and brought it further to the side. 

"Shit!" He wasn't just going to let Don stab him though. Imbalanced though he was, #1 could still move. He kicked back in an attempt to gain more distance and time to recover. 

Donovan growled in annoyance. He was confident that he could outlast just about every single fighter if it came to an endurance contest, and overpower a significant majority if ever they entered a deadlock, but when it came to speed he didn't stand a chance. Fortunately, a well timed earthen spike from Sanna forced him to change course, stumbling further as he did so. There was no question in Donovan's mind that the feeling of a blade impaling a person was something he would get used to, but now wasn't that time. The precious time between the blade entering and exiting his foe had been extended by a few distractions.

The first of these was the resistance of the sword - it wasn't anything like what he had been expecting. For whatever reason, Donovan had anticipated the sword to be practically immobile when embedded in someone, sort of like an axe in a block of wood. Instead, he found he was able to wiggle it around without much struggle. Sure, he could feel the resistance of bone, but the human body was mostly liquid and malleable tissue.

The second distraction was the feeling of blood rushing over his fingers. He had stabbed at an upward angle, so once the blood properly soaked the shirt it began to cascade along the hilt and down the handle. Donovan had definitely hit a major blood vessel, most likely the aorta. 

The third distraction was how heavy the human body felt when leveraged across a blade.

"GRAAAH!" Donovan was brought back to his surroundings by the roar of #2, who was charging. Donovan found himself in the unenviable position of not being able to move his sword around. Still firmly impaled in the gut of his enemy, he wouldn't be able to pull it out in time to parry this thrust.

In a stroke of genius, or perhaps adrenaline induced desperation, Donovan grabbed the shirt of his victim and moved his body between him and the incoming lance. As a human shield, he would serve as both a physical and mental deterrent to #2. Unfortunately, human shield (formerly lancer #1) disappeared just as the tip of the lance was about to make contact. 

Donovan watched in complete awe as the polearm stuck straight into his waist. Both he and #2 stood still, one frowning in pain as the other grinned. There was no doubt in either of their minds that this was a killing blow. 

- - - - -

It had taken all of Titanyana's willpower to hold back when #2 charged towards Donovan. He had given her orders to stay put until she was needed, but despite knowing that he wouldn't actually die from this she just couldn't stifle the sickening sensation in her gut as Donovan was dealt a killing blow. A puffed out tail found its way towards her free hand as she watched.

Gut blows were lethal. Everyone knew that gut blows were a death sentence unless an extremely experienced healer was basically right next to you. The rupturing of intestines and profuse bleeding were not things the human body could handle for long. The pain it caused often led to people buckling over immediately.

However Titanyana could see that Donovan - for whatever reason - was not so quick to crumble. Despite the blade in his gut being jerked out quite violently, he didn't fall over. As a matter of fact, it looked like he was standing up taller than normal.

- - - - -

Donovan was dying, but he was not yet dead. That was important. According to the rules, so long as he wasn't dead he was allowed to fight. Of course, someone who was dead was immediately removed from the ring, making it incredibly hard for someone to further interfere. He had seen the effects of this rule in place just now. Human shield had reached the point the Great Csillacra considered to be 'dead', and was therefore removed from the ring. This included his body and equipment, which led to the unsavory circumstance of human shield becoming more like human not here just when Donovan would have liked him to be human right there.

That also meant that if Donovan was still standing here, then the Great Csillacra did not believe he had reached the conditions that implied lack of life. Sure, he might have a sharp bit of metal sticking into him, but he wasn't dead yet. The presence of that sharp bit of metal just so happened to mean that #2 was no longer quite as far away.

As a matter of fact, #2 was really damn close. 

He wasn't within reach of Donovan's sword, but the distance of a lance shaft was far smaller than the distance made up of lance shaft + lance head + defensive spacing + sword length + arm length. All he needed was one little . . . Donovan's left hand, no longer grasping human not there's clothes, moved down to grip the shaft of the lance just as #2 pulled it out of him. #2's shocked expression did nothing to help him as Donovan pulled it aside, tugging #2 towards him as he did so. 

Still bleeding profusely from his abdomen, Donovan only needed a moment to verify that #2 was within striking distance. Now overextended and in a poor stance to recover, the only way #2 would ever be able to save himself was letting go of his weapon.

- - - - -

Bishop Kayes rubbed his chin, intrigued at what he was seeing play out on the field. He, Cayzi, and Petunia had come to watch Donovan and crew, each for their own reasons.

Petunia was here to witness Titanyana, her pride and joy, in action. Cayzi had been brought here to watch real instances of combat so that he could learn from them. Would he ever use that experience? Probably not, but it was better for Cayzi to have it than not. Bishop Kayes was here to get a grip on the squad's progress, Donovan in particular, and the most recent development massively piqued his interest. 

Bishop Kayes was an expert, a thoroughly learned soul who had been through more than his fair share of battle. He had seen many things, to the point that he often found himself convinced that nothing would surprise him anymore. Of course, the moment he had such thoughts the unexpected would always happen, and now was one of those times. 

"Wow." Cayzi seemed to think it was impressive as well, though he probably didn't know why.

"He certainly is interesting, isn't he?" Kayes had seen many fighting styles in his lifetime, but Donovan's was not one he was familiar with. That lack of familiarity was not surprising in and of itself, the fighting styles of amateurs and newbies were hard to get familiar with on account of their fluid nature, but he had noticed a fundamental difference with Donovan.

In all likelihood, this difference stemmed from the absolute disadvantage Donovan faced, his inability to use Split. Without it, he cannot hope to match the speed of his opponents - he'd never be able win the offensive game of chicken most of the people at the academy seemed to love, they would always strike first. That meant he had to focus on defending and wait, and wait, and wait until an opportunity presented itself.

Defensive fighting styles weren't common, but they weren't exactly rare, either. The problem with them stemmed from the disadvantage being on the defensive conferred, you would always have to react to your opponent. Where they differed from Donovan's display was that even the most defensive of fighting styles incentivized some level of offense, one would run out of split if they only defended after all. Donovan, on the other hand, found himself in that state perpetually. Effectively, there was no point during an engagement where he was not 'out of Split'. He would always be slower than his opponent, so he would always have to defend. 

It followed that none of his actions were taken with the intent to be offensive. Donovan recognized that he wouldn't be able to get through one lance, let alone two, so he didn't even bother with the prospect of attacking. Everything from his positioning to his stance to his movements were done less to threaten the opponent and more to reduce the risk of being hit. Even his feints, movements associated with a follow-up attack, were done to dissuade his opponent from attacking in a certain way.

Yet Kayes had not identified Donovan's style of combat as a defensive one. In fact, Kayes believed this to be the sole example of a style of fighting he had only theorized about - an 'endurance' style. 

There was no doubt in Kayes' mind that Donovan was not engaging in defense because he wanted to, but because he had to. Victory was impossible so long as his opponent was faster than him, but how long would he stay that way? Split was a limited resource, one that even the most veteran combatants had to carefully manage if they didn't want to be left without a way to protect themselves. Once Donovan's opponent exhausted themselves of Split, what would happen?

Kayes couldn't say for sure, he had yet to see it in practice, but he felt comfortable saying that Donovan would possess a massive advantage over his peers, Kayes had seen evidence of it watching over the training sessions in the courtyard. Some of the most powerful and renowned warriors at the academy, the cream of the crop that fell under Trebar's command, instantly fell behind Donovan in terms of performance when they weren't using Split. He could last hours where they could only handle a handful of minutes, and he could do so at a far greater level of intensity.

Once the playing field had been leveled and Split was off the table, Donovan would probably take the offensive. Kayes did not know for sure, but his imagination assumed that such an assault would be relentless, comparable to those levied against him when the use of Split was on the table. Of course, Donovan's opponents were unlikely to stand a chance once they reached that point. They likely never experienced fighting in such a state while Donovan lived in it.

Kayes could see it clearly in the stature of the man bleeding out on the field - in a competition of the physical body, he was the only contestant.

"It takes guts to fight like that. . ." Kayes felt an urge to say that for Cayzi's sake, a subliminal warning that he shouldn't even think about fighting like that.

Of course, Donovan wasn't an idiot. Every second spent in battle presented to him the risk of defeat. That was just the nature of defense - it was impossible to win with it. Therefore, when granted a proper opportunity, he would take it.

Two examples of this had been displayed today. The first was when the taller guy stumbled, being put in a position where he couldn't defend himself. The second was when the shorter guy made the mistake of attacking in a manner that wasn't immediately lethal and staying in range. In doing so, he effectively disarmed himself, handing control of the business end of his weapon over to Donovan, who promptly removed him from the combat circle. Both of these opportunities had, to some extent, been created by someone else. There wasn't anything wrong with that, but Kayes had to wonder.

What did it look like when this Endurance combat style was taken to the extreme?